"But think of the alligators! Think of the snakes--big, bitey snakes!"
"Gracious!" she exclaimed, eyes growing bigger.
"Indians, too!--unreconciled, sulky Seminoles! Fevers! Mud-puddles!
Spiders! And only fifty dollars a week--"
"I--I"ll go," she stammered.
"Go?" I repeated, grimly; "then you"ve exactly two and three-quarter seconds left for preparations."
Instinctively she raised her little gloved hand and patted her hair.
"I"m ready," she said, unsteadily.
"One extra second to make your will," I added, stunned by her self-possession.
"I--I have nothing to leave--n.o.body to leave it to," she said, smiling; "I am ready."
I took that extra second myself for a lightning course in reflection upon effects and consequences.
"It"s silly, it"s probably murder," I said, "but you"re engaged! Now we must run for it!"
And that is how I came to engage the services of Miss Helen Barrison as stenographer.
XIV
At noon on the second day I disembarked from the train at Citron City with all paraphernalia--cage, chemicals, a.r.s.enal, and stenographer; an acc.u.mulation of very dusty impedimenta--all but the stenographer. By three o"clock our hotel livery-rig was speeding along the beach at False Cape towards the tall lighthouse looming above the dunes.
The abode of a gentleman named Slunk was my goal. I sat brooding in the rickety carriage, still dazed by the rapidity of my flight from New York; the stenographer sat beside me, blue eyes bright with excitement, fair hair blowing in the sea-wind.
Our railway companionship had been of the slightest, also absolutely formal; for I was too absorbed in conjecturing the meaning of this journey to be more than absent-mindedly civil; and she, I fancy, had had time for repentance and perhaps for a little fright, though I could discover traces of neither.
I remember she left the train at some city or other where we were held for an hour; and out of the car-window I saw her returning with a brand-new grip sack.
She must have bought clothes, for she continued to remain cool and fresh in her summer shirt-waists and short outing skirt; and she looked immaculate now, sitting there beside me, the trace of a smile curving her red mouth.
"I"m looking for a personage named Slunk," I observed.
After a moment"s silent consideration of the Atlantic Ocean she said, "When do my duties begin, Mr. Gilland?"
"The Lord alone knows," I replied, grimly. "Are you repenting of your bargain?"
"I am quite happy," she said, serenely.
Remorse smote me that I had consented to engage this frail, pink-and-ivory biped for an enterprise which lay outside the suburbs of Manhattan. I glanced guiltily at my victim; she sat there, the incarnation of New York piquancy--a translated denizen of the metropolis--a slender spirit of the back offices of sky-sc.r.a.pers. Why had I lured her hither?--here where the heavy, lavender-tinted breakers thundered on a lost coast; here where above the dune-jungles vultures soared, and snowy-headed eagles, hulking along the sands, tore dead fish and yelped at us as we pa.s.sed.
Strange waters, strange skies--a strange, lost land aquiver under an exotic sun; and there she sat with her wise eyes of a child, unconcerned, watching the world in perfect confidence.
"May I pay a little compliment to your pluck?" I asked, amused.
"Certainly," she said, smiling as the maid of Manhattan alone knows how to smile--shyly, inquiringly--with a lingering hint of laughter in the curled lips" corners. Then her sensitive features fell a trifle.
"Not pluck," she said, "but necessity; I had no chance to choose, no time to wait. My last dollar, Mr. Gilland, is in my purse!"
With a gay little gesture she drew it from her shirt-front, then, smiling, sat turning it over and over in her lap.
The sun fell on her hands, gilding the smooth skin with the first tint of sunburn. Under the corners of her eyes above the rounded cheeks a pink stain lay like the first ripening flush on a wild strawberry.
That, too, was the mark left by the caress of wind and sun. I had had no idea she was so pretty.
"I think we"ll enjoy this adventure," I said; "don"t you?"
"I try to make the best of things," she said, gazing off into the horizon haze. "Look," she added; "is that a man?"
A spot far away on the beach caught my eye. At first I thought it was a pelican--and small wonder, too, for the dumpy, waddling, goose-necked individual who loomed up resembled a heavy bottomed bird more than a human being.
"Do you suppose that could be Mr. Slunk?" asked the stenographer, as our vehicle drew nearer.
He looked as though his name ought to be Slunk; he was digging coquina clams, and he dug with a pecking motion like a water-turkey mastering a mullet too big for it.
His name was Slunk; he admitted it when I accused him. Our negro driver drew rein, and I descended to the sand and gazed on Mr. Slunk.
He was, as I have said, not impressive, even with the tremendous background of sky and ocean.
"I"ve come something over a thousand miles to see you," I said, reluctant to admit that I had come as far to see such a specimen of human architecture.
A weather-beaten grin stretched the skin that covered his face, and he shoved a hairy paw into the pockets of his overalls, digging deeply into profound depths. First he brought to light a twist of South Carolina tobacco, which he leisurely inserted in his mouth--not, apparently, for pleasure, but merely to get rid of it.
The second object excavated from the overalls was a small packet addressed to me. This he handed to me; I gravely handed him a silver dollar; he went back to his clam-digging, and I entered the carriage and drove on. All had been carried out according to the letter of my instructions so far, and my spirits brightened.
"If you don"t mind I"ll read my instructions," I said, in high good-humor.
"Pray do not hesitate," she said, smiling in sympathy.
So I opened the little packet and read:
"Drive to Cape Canaveral along the beach. You will find a gang of men at work on a government breakwater. The superintendent is Mr. Rowan. Show him this letter.
"FARRAGO."
Rather disappointed--for I had been expecting to find in the packet some key to the interesting mystery which had sent Professor Farrago into the Everglades--I thrust the missive into my pocket and resumed a study of the immediate landscape. It had not changed as we progressed: ocean, sand, low dunes crowned with impenetrable tangles of wild bay, sparkleberry, and live-oak, with here and there a weather-twisted palmetto sprawling, and here and there the battered blades of cactus and Spanish-bayonet thrust menacingly forward; and over all the vultures, sailing, sailing--some mere circling motes lost in the blue above, some sheering the earth so close that their swiftly sweeping shadows slanted continually across our road.
"I detest a buzzard," I said, aloud.
"I thought they were crows," she confessed.
"Carrion-crows--yes.